THE CHASE DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER Treasure of Khan Black Wind Trojan Odyssey Valhalla Rising Atlantis Found Flood Tide Shock Wave Inca Gold Sahara Dragon Treasure Cyclops Deep Six Pacific Vortex Night Probe Vixen 03 Raise the Titanic Iceberg The Mediterranean Caper KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH PAUL KEMPRECOS The Navigator Polar Shift Lost City White Death Fire Ice Blue Gold Serpent OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH CRAIG DIRGO Skeleton Coast Dark Watch Sacred Stone Golden Buddha NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO The Sea Hunters II Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed The Sea Hunters THE CHASE CLIVE CUSSLER G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Publishers Since 1838 Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Copyright © 2007 by Sandecker, RLLLP Endpaper map and illustrations by Richard Dahlquist All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cussler, Clive. The chase / Clive Cussler. p. cm. ISBN: 1-4295-6650-7 1. Bank robberies—Fiction. 2. California—History—1850–1950—Fiction. I. Title. PS3553.U75C4720072007017291 813'.54—dc22 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 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To Teri, Dirk, and Dana No father was blessed with more-loving children THE CHASE Contents GHOST FROM THE PAST THE BUTCHER BANDIT Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 THE CHASE QUICKENS Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 UP FROM THE DEPTHS GHOST FROM THE PAST APRIL 15, 1950 FLATHEAD LAKE, MONTANA IT ROSE FROM THE DEPTHS LIKE AN EVIL MONSTER in a Mesozoic sea. A coat of green slime covered the cab and boiler while gray-brown silt from the lake bottom slid and fell off the eighty-one-inch drive wheels and splashed into the cold waters of the lake. Ascending slowly above the surface, the old steam locomotive hung for a moment from the cables of a huge crane mounted on a wooden barge. Still visible under the dripping muck, beneath the open side window of its cab, was the number 3025. Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3025 rolled out of the factory on April 10th of 1904. The “Pacific” class was a common large-sized, high-drive-wheeled steam engine that could pull ten steel passenger cars long distances at speeds up to ninety miles an hour. She was known as a 4-6-2 because of her four-wheeled truck in the front, just behind the cowcatcher, the six massive drive wheels below the boiler, and the two small wheels mounted beneath the cab. The crew on the barge watched in awe as the crane operator orchestrated his levers and gently lowered old 3025 onto the main deck, its weight settling the barge three inches deeper in the water. She sat there almost a minute before the six men overcame their wonderment and detached the cables. “She’s in remarkably good shape for sitting underwater for almost fifty years,” murmured the salvage superintendent of the battered old barge that was nearly as ancient as the locomotive. Since the nineteen twenties, it had been used for dredging operations on the lake and surrounding tributaries. Bob Kaufman was a big, friendly man, ready with a laugh at the slightest hint of something jovial. With a face ruddy from long hours spent in the sun, he had been working on the barge for twenty-seven years. Now seventy-five, he could have retired long ago, but as long as the dredging company kept him on he was going to keep working. Sitting at home and working jigsaw puzzles was not his idea of the good life. He studied the man standing beside him, who was, as close as he could figure, slightly older. “What do you think?” Kaufman asked. The man turned, tall and still lean in his late seventies, hair full and silver. His face was as weathered as buckskin. He stared at
